Biofluid metabonomics using ¹H NMR spectroscopy: the road to biomarker discovery in gastroenterology and hepatology

Abstract

Metabolic profiling or ‘metabonomics’ is an investigatory method that allows metabolic changes associated with the presence of an underlying pathological process to be investigated. Various biofluids can be utilized in the process but urine, serum and fecal extract are most pertinent to the investigation of gastrointestinal and hepatological disease. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy-based metabonomic research has the potential to generate novel noninvasive diagnostic tests, based on biomarkers of disease, which are simple and cost effective yet retain high sensitivity and specificity characteristics. The process involves a number of key steps, including sample collection, data acquisition, chemometric techniques and, finally, validation. This technique-driven review aims to demystify the metabonomics pathway, while also illustrating the potential of this technique with recent examples of its application in hepato–gastroenterological disease.

Keywords::

• biomarkers
• metabolic profiling
• metabolomics
• metabonomics
• multivariate analysis
• NMR spectroscopy
• noninvasive

Acknowledgements

All authors are grateful to the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Facility at Imperial College London for infrastructure support.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

MJW McPhail is supported by the Wellcome Trust, UK. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.